Chapter 27
My entire bodyaches by the time I finally make it home. Each day camp has been going longer and longer. Every time I try and take a break to use my phone or to go home for dinner Coach Greer, or one of the other members of the coaching or tutoring staff, finds a reason to keep me there just a little bit longer. I”ve got my suspicions as to why they are trying to take up my time, but no concrete evidence.
In the beginning, I was not the only one being held late, but the last several days I”ve noticed I am the last one out the door. Tonight was the final straw.
At six o”clock our official tutoring session ended, and the guys started packing up their bags to go home. I decided I would follow along. Before I made it out the door Coach Greer waved me down.
“Ford, can I have a moment please?” he asked.
I crossed my arms and stood where I was, waiting for him to come to me.
We stared at each other for what felt like forever, but was probably actually several seconds, and then he gave in and came to me.
“Since you are new to the team, I would like you to spend some time after our study sessions, to study our playbook, and then I would like for you to watch some game tape of the teams that we are going to be up against first so that you can be prepared.”
“Won”t those be from last season?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes, but the ones that I want you to watch still have the same coaches. You should be home with enough time to get plenty of rest for the next day.”
“But conveniently, not enough time to spend any time at all with my girlfriend. I”m sure that”s just a coincidence. It has nothing to do with the request that I appear to be single, right?” I asked, but it wasn”t really a question. It was pretty clear they were keeping me busy for a reason.
He gave me a patronizing look, which I didn”t buy for a fucking second, and then said, “Your personal life is your business. We only asked that you present a certain image to the public. Your public image helps to sell tickets and brings in revenue for the school. I didn”t like asking you to do it any more than you liked hearing it, but we are both just cogs in this machine. Just like if I don”t produce for them and follow their directions I won”t get to stick around, if you don”t follow their directions?—”
“Then my scholarship disappears and I”m off the team. Is that what you”re trying to say without saying it?”
“Your job is to win football games and get fans in the stands. Think you can do that?”
I shouldn”t have let his intimidation tactics work, but in that moment I wasn”t sure what to do. So I spent an hour studying the book and then I spent another hour watching old game tapes.
Now all I want to do is grab my girl, fall into bed, and see how much of her day I can catch up on before sleep claims me and I pass the fuck out. I turn the key and enter a very dark and very quiet apartment.
“Tessa? Vixen, are you here?”
There”s no answer. The lights are off in the bathroom. For a split second I have a paralyzing fear that I”m going to find her on the floor somewhere and a puddle of blood. I don”t know what brings that image into my head, but there is this sense of anxiety and fear hanging around. Maybe that is my own because I can”t find her.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and find a text from her from several hours ago.
Tessa
Call me when you get a chance. I’m going to work late so I don’t have to be home alone.
I exhale in relief, but then I do the math in my head. I know she started work at nine this morning. It”s now about eight-thirty at night. Carol never lets her work that many hours in one day. I try Tessa”s cell phone and it goes straight to voicemail. She often turns her phone off when she”s at work, so I try the café next.
“Daily Grind Café this is Carol,” she answers.
“Hey Carol, this is Ford. Is Tessa still there?”
“No, I sent her home hours ago. Like around six. Did she not make it home?”
“I just got home. There are no dishes in the sink. I can”t tell if she”s been here or not,” I admit.
“Her friend was here earlier. What”s her name? You know, the one who”s always wearing black. Pretty but kind of scary.”
I nod my head, even though she can”t see me. “Tracy. I”ll try her. Maybe they made plans.”
“Go find our girl. Have her text me when she”s back home safe. I had a heart attack the last time she got taken from my café. I”m not so sure working for me is good luck for her.”
“Thanks Carol, I”ll tell her,” I say, and hang up the phone.
I open my contacts and send up a silent prayer that Tracy hasn”t changed her number before I hit call.
“Ford? Why are you calling me?”
Under different circumstances, I would give her shit for that kind of greeting, but I really don”t have the mental capacity for it right now. “Is Tessa with you?”
“No. I haven”t seen her since earlier this afternoon. We talked about having dinner later this week but nothing today. Did you guys have a fight?”
“No. I just got home from training camp, and she”s not here. Carol said she left work at six. I can”t tell if she”s been home or not. She might not have ever made it here. Do you know where she would go?”
“There”s a lot of possibilities. It”s raining outside. But she”s taking public transportation, so what if she didn”t make it home?”
Suddenly I find it hard to swallow a very large lump in my throat. Every morning I get up and take my truck to campus, and I haven”t given a single thought to the fact that Tessa”s car is still in Playa Pacifica.
“I am a fucking asshole,” I mumble.
“You won”t hear any arguments from me,” Tracy says.
“I can”t believe I”ve just been letting her take public transportation. What if she didn”t make it home? I tried calling her phone, it goes straight to voicemail. If it”s not on, we can”t even use it to track her.”
I start to grow lightheaded, and my breathing is coming very quickly. I don”t know what I”m going to do. I don”t know where to start looking. The one thing I do know is that I cannot sit here and do nothing.
“First, you need to breathe. Tessa is not some weak damsel in distress who can”t protect herself. She”s not going to be walking around unaware of her surroundings.”
“What”s second?” I ask her when she stops talking.
“Huh?”
“You said first, that implies there”s a second. So what”s next?” I know I”m growing impatient, but I need to be out doing something.
“This is going to be a hard one for you, are you ready?” she asks.
“This conversation is hard for me. Will you just spit it out?”
“Damn, you”re grouchier than I remember. Fine, you need to wait there. I”m on my way.”
“Hurry up,” I snap and hang up the phone.
She might be right. I might be grouchier than she remembers, but it”s not every day that my girlfriend goes missing. Unfortunately, it”s not the first time she”s gone missing either.
I wait for an agonizing twenty minutes, which in Seattle traffic is actually not very long, before Tracy pulls up in front of the apartment building and parks illegally. I hear honking outside, and I know without her even having to call me that she”s here.
I grab my wallet and keys and scribble a note to Tessa that I”ve gone looking for her then walk out the door.
Tracy is driving a dark silver Audi that I am fairly certain belongs to Bennett. I have to fold myself like a pretzel to get into the car. The moment I”m in, she floors it, driving dangerously fast through the rain-soaked streets of the city.
I watch the landmarks, and start to recognize that we are on the way to Josephine”s neighborhood. “Isn”t this the way to her mom”s house?” I ask.
She slides her eyes my direction for a split second and then focuses back on the road. “I told you there were several possibilities.”
We don”t talk anymore as she winds up Queen Anne’s Hill, and pulls up to a park. She slaps the steering wheel. “Well, cross that one off the list. I guess this might have been far-fetched because she doesn”t have a car.”
“It”s pouring rain. Why are we going to a park?” I ask.
Tracy looks at me again, and this time almost with sympathy. The look says that when I find out what she knows I”m not going to like it. “We are going to a park because it”s raining outside.”
“That makes absolutely no sense,” I say.
She turns her face toward the driver’s side window and mumbles, “Tell me about it.”
We head back down the hill, and re-enter my neighborhood. There are several parks surrounding my apartment building. One is constructed to look like a Japanese garden. Tessa is not there. There’s another one that is a more classic park with playground equipment for children. She isn”t there either.
Tracy stays in the parking lot for a minute looking out over the surrounding area. She points off to the left. “That space there, is that a park? It”s on a hill, right?”
“Yeah I think that is a park. Kind of more a viewpoint,” I confirm.
“Perfect.” She puts the car back in drive and starts heading in that direction.
When she pulls into the parking lot, I almost don”t see her at first, because she is so perfectly still.
Tracy exhales. “Not again.”
“What do you mean, not again?” I ask.
Tracy shakes her head. “That”s really not my place to tell you.”
“Trace, I know we”ve grown apart. I”ve got a lot to apologize to you for, but right now, my focus is on her. I need you to tell me what she needs. What is going on right now?”
“Has she spent a lot of time alone lately?”
“Football camp started a few weeks ago and it”s been a bigger time commitment than either of us realized it would be. And I think that they”re trying to make me stay later than everyone else.”
“Why would they do that?”
Tracy is the first person that I am going to say this out loud to. There was a time that me confiding in her would not have been strange. I might have even gone to her before I went to Shane. “I haven”t figured out how I”m going to talk to Tessa about this yet, so I don”t want you bringing it up to her. I am going to say something, I just don”t want her to think that I”m going to go along with this bullshit.”
“Spill it, Shaw.”
“The athletic director has basically said they want me to present myself to the public as single because that will help sell more tickets to women.”
She scrunches up her eyebrows. “Isn”t he the coach from our high school? He”s got to know you well enough to know you”re not going to go along with that.”
“Yep, and that”s why they”ve been keeping me there later every day,” I say out loud what I only just figured out a couple hours ago.
“You think they”re trying to make you guys break up,” she says, confirming my other thought.
“I was coming home to talk to Tessa about it and she was gone.”
“You cannot talk to her about this tonight. I know she seems like she”s doing okay. Like she’s handling everything that we went through, but she”s really good at faking shit. The truth is she wasn”t doing very good before we were abducted. It”s worse now. It”s not every day, but if she spends too much time alone the thoughts get to her, and she just shuts down.”
“What kind of thoughts?” I already know the answer, but I still ask the question.
“Let”s just say Tessa is not the kind of person who should be left alone. She”s still a risk to herself.”
“She”s been working crazy hours. I think Carol pretty much forced her to leave today.”
Tracy nods her head. “Yeah, that”s because she still has some sense of self-preservation. When she scares herself, she finds a park. It”s better when it”s raining.”
“But it”s cold.” I know my comment is stupid the second that I say it, because Tessa is doing this instead of cutting herself.
Tracy can tell that I have put those thoughts together as well. “Yeah, I can see that you have figured out that she likes things that hurt because it makes her feel. But it”s more than that. She says the rain makes her feel clean again.”
I have to close my eyes and keep them closed for several seconds. I have never felt such an instant urge to cry for someone else.
“He died too quickly,” I mutter, thinking about how Damien killed Jesse.
“Like I said, this has been going on since before we were abducted. I think there is something else that she has never told anybody. Until she does, it”s going to eat her alive.”
With those words in my head, I step out of the car and approach Tessa. She doesn”t react as I get closer to her, sit down on the bench next to her, and brush a strand of her hair out of her face. The rain is more of a drizzle now, but I can see she has sat outside probably through the entire deluge.
Her skin is ice cold. I brush my knuckles down her cheek, and finally she blinks her eyes and turns her face to look at me.
“I found a new spot,” she says. Her voice is flat and without inflection.
I realize her old spot must be the first place Tracy took me to. “We need to get you home,” I tell her.
Instead of listening to me, she turns her face back up to the sky as if she”s trying to soak up more rain.
“I love it when it rains. Everything feels new. Like you can start fresh after a rainfall.” She”s not making much sense and it”s worrying me.
“Tessa, baby you”re really cold,” I argue.
She shrugs. “Doesn”t feel that cold anymore.”
“Did it feel cold when you first came out here?”
She nods her head. “But the cold was invigorating. It made me feel alive, like I”m really here and not just existing.”
“I am so sorry, you”ve been alone too much lately. I”m still going to have to be gone until six, but there”s been some bullshit that I want to talk to you about, not tonight, but it”s going to stop,” I promise her.
She scrunches her eyebrows together. “Have I done something?”
I realize everything I said could be taken several different ways, and Tessa is always going to interpret things negatively for herself.
“No baby, you haven”t done anything. It”s nothing I want you to worry about. Let”s go home and put you in a warm shower.”
She still doesn”t move, so I pick her up and carry her to the car. Tracy sees me carrying her, and nods in approval.
Tracy doesn’t double park this time, but actually pulls into the small parking lot reserved for the apartment building. I pass the keys over to her and let her unlock the door while I carry Tessa inside.
“Where’s the bathroom?” Tracy asks when we get inside.
“It’s down the hallway on the left.”
“This place is a lot bigger than I was expecting,” she shouts back.
Tracy comes back to the living room with a large towel. Tessa starts to wake up as I peel the wet clothes off of her and wrap the towel around her. She blinks her big brown eyes and looks at me.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off like that. I didn’t realize my phone was dead until after I got out there, and I just couldn’t come back here and be alone in the apartment.”
“Would you tell me why?” I ask her.
“Hey guys, I’m going to go and let you talk,” Tracy interjects.
“Thanks for your help, Trace.”
She tips her head to me. “I saw my friend tonight. I’ve missed him. Will you be around when I drag Lydia out for dinner?”
“I will be leaving at six with the rest of the team, so as long as we have dinner around seven it should work,” I tell her.
“But how can you know that when you haven’t been able to for weeks now?” Tessa asks.
“I promise we will talk about all of this, but right now let me take care of you. I only just put it all together tonight,” I urge her.
Tracy silently heads toward the door to let Tessa and I talk. She waves goodbye before walking out.
“Tessa, what did you mean when you said that you shouldn’t be alone here?”
She bites her lip, and looks down. Her hands grip the towel and pull it tighter around her body. She inhales, taking a slow, deep breath before she looks back up at me. “Sometimes when I’m alone my thoughts get too loud. I’ve tried to stay busy, but there’s only so much I can do right now.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me?”
“When? I’ve barely seen you for weeks now. And I’m not blaming you. I know that this is what it’s going to be like, and I can support you in this. I don’t want you to think I’m going to fall apart every time you have an away game, or need to practice late. There’s just something that’s bubbled to the surface, and I’m not quite ready to deal with it yet.”
“It’s Saturday. The rules say that they have to give us a day of rest. Coach Greer has been taking advantage of the fact that I feel grateful for this opportunity, and of our history. I’m turning my phone off tomorrow and spending the day with you, unless you have to work.”
She gives me a little smile. “You know, I think Carol is getting a little sick of seeing me. I’d love to spend the day with you.”